Most Tanteidan magazines start with a section that deals with modular folding. I was surprised to find a modular cube designed by Jun Maekawa, along with a bunch of variations.
With cursory research, it appears “borromean” relates to interlocking shapes, and this cube has “ribbons” of colour that weave in among each other in an interesting way. Continue reading
When my sister in law went to Nepal, she found some rather charming Lokta paper, hand-made with block printed gold floral designs. She carefully transported it back with her for me to wrangle. I had a modular in mind and the orange Lokta seemed the obvious choice:
This is Miyuki Kawamura’s Mummy Star, a startlingly complicated modular in 30 pieces. The technique of folding splayed fans, then folding them back on themselves gives the appearance of “wrapping” or bandages I suppose (think Mummy Movie). Continue reading
I am always on the lookout for something to keep my hands busy in the boring bits of the day. At the moment, many of my classes are doing assignment work, when they do not need assistance, rather than sit idle I fold:
This “Star Twirl Torus”, designed by Yuri Shumakov, was a bit of a mistake – I must learn to read the fine print (you know, the bit that says “now repeat this 196 times”) – facepalm.
A simple module, 6 of which interlock to form an overlapping hexagonal star that is part of a twirl that keeps going. I sourced 6 different colours, sort of spectrum-themed and began to fold. Continue reading
I seem fixated on modular origami at the moment (a branch I have not really done very much in). When I saw Francis Ow’s Double Cube, I asked him if I could have a go at folding it:
He generously shared some instructions with me (how amazing is the Internet – it can put you in actual touch with people you consider design legends) and I set about wrestling with the fold. Continue reading
As a teacher, I have a pastoral care group of students from multiple year levels, many initial strangers and new students at the start of the year.
I look for an activity that we can all focus on, conversations and collegiality usually follows.
Francis Ow published diagrams on a “house” module (strangely appropriate) and hints on how to compose large structures using lots of them. Continue reading
I have a low tolerance of boredom, so slack time between busy times at work required me to keep my fingers busy:
This is an interesting module, made up of useful units – tiles of joined equilateral triangles with solid pockets and tabs. Continue reading
They say “many hands make light work” and they (whoever “they” are) are quite correct:
My pastoral care group (the Mighty Magee F) and I folded Tomoko Fuse’s Icosahedron Kasudama, as part of a “getting to know you” exercise to start off the year, with the theme “the sum of the parts is greater than the individual”. Continue reading
In the hiatus between receiving parts of the Ryujin to fold, I am always on the look out for something interesting to fold.
I first saw Froy’s Burr Puzzle on the Hong Kong Origami Society’s forum and decided to give it a try. Continue reading
A dear friend (*waves to Caff) holidayed in Europe, visited Florence and found some amazing block-printed handmade paper, popped it in a post pack tube and mailed it to me.
To be honest, I have struggled to use this paper because it seemed a such a terrible shame to cut it. Lovely irregularities, vibrant colours and relatively heavy cardstock suggested that a kusudama might be the solution.
Thumbing through Tomoko Fuse’s book “Multidimensional Transformations, Unit Origami”, I came across a unit called “little turtle” that I had not tried. I think they got the name because, as part of the folding process of the unit you make a shape similar to the “turtle base” I have used for other models.
Procrastination, thy name is Wonko!
I had some time, and some coloured paper, so decided to try Daniel Kwan’s lovely geometrical modular:
Simple units, reminiscent of Frances Ow’s 60 degree unit interlock to form one, then two etc triangular prisms – choice of nice bold colours make this a real charmer. Continue reading
In desperate need of some occupational therapy after a punishing term, I looked for a “no brainer” fold to calm my racing brain – instead I found this:
The CLO Kusudama, designed by Isa Klein was beautifully demonstrated in a video by Jo Nakashima, and I decided to give it a go. Continue reading
I came across a bunch of variations to a 12 unit modular cube that variously used a 1×1, 2×1 and 3×1 rectangle. I settled on the square variant (in retrospect I should have used the 2×1 version – half as much paper required, but you live and learn.
Initially I just was interested in the locking mechanism of a cube, so folded a red one. then I decided to see how a yellow one might intersect, then because I had some purple paper left over from the torus I thought to link the yellow to a purple, and the idea sort of grew from there.
I scoured my dealer’s (Rhonda, the custodian of paper supplies) shelves and ended up finding 11 different colours/tints – I added a “black” origami paper as the 12th colour and, hey presto they formed a ring of particular beauty.
It just sort of happened – I resolved to only fold during breaks at work, in front of kids, and over a period of 2 weeks it grew into a long chain and I was finally ready to join it into a ring.
I want to say this join was an easy, simple thing. I did not find it so – I tried, undid it, tried again, unfolded it (muttering obscenities under my breath). tried again, thought I had it until I realised it was wrong (the pattern should repeat, the join should not be visible – doh! Continue reading
Early morning catching up on Facebook, I saw a friend had posted a link to a Youtube clip of a woven ring:
I took 8 11cm squares (left-overs from the torus project) and split them into quarter strips (making a total of 32 strips of paper), then folded each strip in half longways then in half shortways – nice easy folding. Continue reading
Browsing an amazing book by David Mitchell called “Paper Crystals”, I spotted an interesting modular ball based on pentagons tiled with triangles named Electra.
Coupled with the original model was a suggestion that it was possible to make a 60 module version consisting of pentagons surrounded by squares separated by triangles. Continue reading
The “Penrose Triangle”, also known as a Penrose Tribar is an impossible object:
If you look at any vertice it makes sense but the shape, as a whole, cannot exist … well, until now that is.
When I first saw folds of this I was intrigued, knowing a folder on Facebook, he suggested I approach the designer, Nick Robinson, who graciously shared his design with me (isn’t the interweb amazing). Continue reading
